These Days
by ThornDraconis
Summary: It was just another spring afternoon. It was just another coffee shop. It was just another city. But he was no ordinary man. And she was most definitely not an ordinary girl. All he had seen was her beautiful face, until he finally heard her soft voice. "Do you have a name?"
1. Nothing

_"These blood red eyes  
Don't see so good_  
 _But what's worse is if they could_  
 _Would I change my ways?_  
 _Wasted times_  
 _And broken dreams_  
 _Violent colors so obscene_  
 _Is all I see these days_  
 _These days"_  
 _These Days, Black Keys_

There is something about certain moments in life where it seems like our entire lives unfold right in front of our eyes. Unlike many might think, it is not necessarily connected to any trauma, but rather to moments so impactful that they leave a permanent brand right in our hearts, straight in our souls. And the funny thing is that these moments seem so ordinary at first that we simply overlook their importance and realize much later that they changed _everything_.

This story is about two broken souls that meet each other thanks to one of those rare moments of clarity born at one of the most ordinary of circumstances.

X

It was just another spring afternoon.

It was just another coffee shop.

It was just another city.

But he was not just another person.

For the past forty days, he had roamed around small cities and broken into empty houses just so he could sleep somewhere warm, eat more than just candy bars and chocolate and at least take a shower. Breaking into other people's houses seemed to be a second nature of sorts, just like _borrowing_ cars, books and money. Even if he was perfectly able to hide in plain sight, he could not afford to travel by bus or train – it was simply too risky, especially when half the word was looking for him. He made sure to cover his tracks – cars, houses and cities were ordinary and random; he packed light; and he always wore gloves as to never leave any fingerprints at all.

Of course, those were just side effects of whoever he was.

He packed light because his belongings included a backpack, an empty wallet, some brochures he had got at the Smithsonian Institute, a pen, a pencil, a map, a flashlight, a change of clothes and two black diaries. He wore gloves all the time because he could not afford to let anyone see his left hand. And as for ordinary and random, well, these were _choices_ and he finally got to make them for the first time in his life.

He was the Winter Soldier.

That meant he was both the most dangerous and the most wanted man on Earth.

He was sitting at the farthest corner of a coffee shop in a small Austrian city named Perchtoldsdorf. His gloved hands held his cup of coffee tightly as he gazed across the street and watched the pedestrians with an unreadable look in his bearded face. In all reality, he envied them: their normalcy, their perfectly ordinary lives, their mundane concerns, their commonplace habits. The only normal thing he got to do these days was visiting coffee shops and even that was done under very calculated circumstances. Pay in cash, wear a cap, mind his own business, drink black coffee, sit by the window, make no eye contact and leave after twenty-seven minutes.

For the last forty days, that had been his routine: go to the next city, abandon the stolen car somewhere, walk across the town, find an empty and safe house, break into said house, borrow some money and a book, eat something for dinner, read said book, _sleep_ , write his recollections in his diaries, have breakfast (usually apples and some toast), find a quiet coffee shop, and then repeat.

Of course, sleep was another concept entirely.

Thrashing, screaming and wake up drowning in cold sweat thanks to sweet nightmares was more like it. And it was always the same.

It was snowing, he was falling, he was screaming.

 _Bucky_. _James Buchanan Barnes_.

" _Soldier?"_

" _Ready to comply."_

It had been like that for the past month, ever since the agonizing episodes in Washington D.C.. It was like life had been turned upside down, then grabbed ahold of both of his arms, placed a blindfold in front of his eyes, and proceeded to beat him to the ground until there was no air left to his lungs. His mind was not much better than that, though.

 _"You know me."_

 _"No, I don't!"_

 _"Bucky, you've known me your entire life. Your name is James Buchanan Barnes…"_

 _"SHUT UP!"_

 _"I'm not gonna fight you. You're my friend."_

 _"You're my mission! YOU. ARE. MY. MISSION!"_

 _"Then finish it.'Cause I'm with you 'til the end of the line…"_

Whatever was left of his poor, tortured mind just kept replaying the same scene over and over again as if it were the only thing left to his bone. Torture. Pain. Misery. Nothing.

These days... These days were unlike anything he had ever lived even if he could not remember anything at all. These days... These days were like a kaleidoscope of thoughts, a roller coaster of feelings, a whirlwind of questions, a thunderstorm of pain. These days… These days were unbearable, unexplainable, unforgettable. These days…

 _They_ had broken him beyond repair, destroyed his life and left him to retrieve the smithereens with his bare hands. One of them was trembling, weak; the other one was a sight he could not stand, a sight that would haunt him forever.

A metallic, robotic, bionic one. A symbol of pain, violence, monstrosities. A constant reminder of the awful, ghastly, horrible things he had done, yet could not remember.

The Winter Soldier. That was his name. That was whom Hydra had turned him into. A monster. A spy. An assassin. A puppet. An animal. A pet. No one. _Nothing_.

These days, all he could think about was how much he hated them, how much he hated himself.

Who would have known that a single word could trigger a downfall? Well, he knew better than anyone else did that ten simple words had already triggered _his_ downfall.

Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.

" _Bucky?"_

" _Who the hell is Bucky?"_

Trapped inside his own mind – unbeknownst to himself. Living inside a cage – unbeknownst to himself. Surviving in a nightmare – unbeknownst to himself. The blindfold had been removed, the fog had been cleared, the straightjacket had been released. A newfound freedom to a man who had never made a single choice in his life. Well, at least as far as he could remember. And considering that they had destroyed his mind, tampered with his memories and broken his spirit, that meant much more than he could begin to comprehend.

A single word had catalyzed all of that and that very word happened to be one of the most important things someone will ever know: his name. Bucky.

That _word_ had put his _world_ to an end.

Hydra was now gone. The very person who had caused the downfall of his world had singlehandedly taken care of that. And without Hydra, he was finally free. But how can one deal with freedom when they do not consider themselves trapped in the first place?

Another puzzle. Another fucking conundrum.

Now that they were gone, he could finally see it – the truth. It was much more daunting and agonizing that he could have anticipated.

Wake up. Scream. Obey. Comply. Kill. Wipe. Start over.

Brainwashed. Tortured. Deprived. Beaten. Manipulated. Coerced. Destroyed. Broken. Gone.

These words were such perfect descriptions of his past that he wondered how the hell he had managed to survive. But the thing was that they had turned him into a machine. By stripping him of his will, of his choice, of his name and of his memories, he was completely gone. Without all of that, any circumstance, any situation was always the same. No feelings. No point of view. No questions. No interpretations. They always meant the same. They always meant nothing. Because in the end, Hydra had deprived him of what made him human.

He had only realized those awful truths now that they were gone.

It should be simple enough to enjoy the pleasantries of a new life if he was not who he was.

 _Nothing_.

He was the Winter Soldier. He was a murderer, a killer, a coldblooded master assassin who had taken the lives of many, many people – people whose names and faces he did not even remember clearly!

And although he had done all of that blindly, although he had not had any choice whatsoever, he had done all of that. The memories might not be there, but the demons were haunting him all the same. And he had an inkling suspicion that they were coming back for him.

It was always the little things: the slight tremble in hands that had never shuttered before, the looking over his shoulders every once in a while, the second guessing of his thoughts, the racing of a heart that he had never paid attention to, the throbbing headache that hammered his brain whenever he wondered who he was, what he had done or whether those bits and pieces he dreamed of were memories or just figments of his imagination.

But most of all, what he dreaded the most was _choosing_.

He had chosen to go after Captain America – a man he did not know but that had claimed to be his friend, a connection to a past he never knew he had had. He had chosen to pull Captain America from the river and save his life – a man that meant absolutely nothing to him and that was a complete stranger. He had made those choices without even knowing why, just because they felt right, just because those words, that name had meant something and nothing had ever meant anything to him.

It was the first time in his life that something had had a meaning, a feeling. He was indeed a human being.

It was days after that episode that he found out the truth about his identity and the horrible, atrocious things he had done. And he knew that something had definitely changed for none of that had felt wrong before. Now, however, he knew that taking someone's life made him a monster.

A cold-blood killer. A merciless assassin. A monster.

 _Nothing_.

The worst part was that he did not even remember doing any of those things. Bits and pieces, wisps and specs, patches and blotches. _Nothing._

Not to mention the fact that all of those things had been _done to him_. And that he had a life before all of that.

James Buchanan Barnes.

It all came back to the same. Who am I? What am I? Why did these things happen to me? Why can't I remember anything? How can I go on? What the fuck am I supposed to do?

What? Why? How? Who? WHY?

Emptiness hollowed his existence. It was as though he was falling endlessly as a cold heavy wind lulled his body straight to the ground and that feeling was oddly familiar. All the while, those atrocious feelings enveloped his body and clung to it with tight leashes and vicious claws. He could not breathe, he could not move, he could not resist. The only thing that was left for him to do was watch himself hopelessly.

Sometimes he wondered if he was indeed a human being or a machine that had been programmed to obey and kill. Humans felt, humans thought and humans got involved. Now that he knew who he was, he wished he was a machine just so they could wipe him and start over.

But he was _nothing_.

He had come across a piece in a newspaper that described him as a terrorist, a menace to society, a cold and cruel man who had been responsible for world-changing events for the past seventy years. He was a murderer, a dangerous and merciless killer who had obeyed Hydra blindly and in doing so had ensured their quiet and endless, ever-growing power. They had reaped war, harvested conflict and eliminated every single threat – one by one until there was only a few of them left. He had been their fist, their metallic fist. The Winter Soldier.

The words were harsh, yet truthful. However, they were half the truth.

The other half had to do with twenty-seven years of life that seemed to belong to another man. James Buchanan Barnes. That truth was something he could not even begin to understand. A black book melancholically and darkly bound but whose contents were written in another language – a language he could neither read not speak.

He had gone to the Smithsonian Institution to truly see it with his own two eyes. While destroying his mind and torturing his brain, Hydra had carefully erased his entire past until all he had left were bits and pieces of thin air, wisps and specs of nothing. Dandelion pieces blowing in the wind.

He saw a man with his own face. He saw a man with his own two eyes. He saw a man that was so similar, yet so different from himself. There were no dark circles under his eyes, there was no shadow beneath his gaze, there was no robotic arm patched to his body, there was not that aura of defeat and brokenness that seemed to define who he was. He saw a man named James Buchanan Barnes, a man who had fought alongside Captain America almost _seventy years ago_. He had been a Sergeant, he had lived in New York City and he had been childhood friends with Captain America – or rather, Steve Rogers. He had helped him defeat the Nazis and Hydra. He had helped orchestrate the plan that would culminate in the death of some enemy named Red Skull. He had been a good man, a kind one. He had been a _man_ , _a human being_. But then he had _died_ before that. He had fallen off a train in the middle of nowhere and no one had been able to save him.

 _It was snowing, he was falling, he was screaming…_

 _It was cold, it was too fucking cold…_

 _W_ hen he closed his eyes and tried to remember any of that, it was like he was being torn apart, as if they were cracking his skull open while scorching blood ran freely around his body.

 _James Buchanan Barnes was indeed his name. Bucky was indeed who he was._

 _No, no, no!_

 _I am the Winter Soldier! That's who I am! That must be a trick! They must have done that!_

 _No, no, no!_

 _I AM THE WINTER SOLDIER!_

Then why the hell could he not stop thinking about what he had read in that museum? Why could he not dismiss the idea that that man resembled him so strikingly? Why could he not summon a single thought about his past? Why could he not stop remembering Captain America's words? He had also been deprived of seventy years of his life thanks to Hydra and then woken up to an alien world with no family, no friends, no nothing! At least it seemed as though he had his recollections and even seventy years later, he had remembered his childhood friend.

Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes.

That was his true name. That was his true identity, yet, they had stolen it from him – the only thing a man truly owns. They had taken everything from him – quietly, in the shadow of the world. They had taken everything from him. _Everything_. And then they had made him into nothing. _He was nothing_.

 _Nothing_.

His name was James Buchanan Barnes. He was born in 1917. He lived in New York City.

Darkness. Coldness. Emptiness. Brokenness.

These days, those thoughts were lacerating whatever was left of his mind. It was drenching onto his brain cells, rushing to every corner of his skull, hammering its insides with such a powerful strength that he could not even keep his balance. He saw himself standing in front of a graveyard and that was where his lost memories and lost hopes were buried deep under the ground. It hurt so much, as if he would bleed to death, a wound that was entrenched so deeply that perhaps it would never stop bleeding. A scar rooted deep into his soul. Everything else was forlorn.

These days, the throbbing sensation in his head got deeper and deeper and it felt like darkness was spreading through his eyesight and reality came and went every other second. It was like everything was part of an alternate reality, of a sick and twisted endless nightmare. A nightmare into which he was falling forever. Just like he had fallen off that train seventy years ago.

Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes.

The understanding that he had indeed been someone else… the understanding that he had had a life before Hydra… the realization that he had been a normal person… the realization that he had probably been experimented upon… the knowledge that he had been transformed into a machine that worked for the very people he had sworn to defeat a long time ago… the knowledge that his years had been wasted on a cause that he had once despised… It was too much. It was too fucking much.

 _And it was too fucking cold…_

These days, his eyes were burning with tears that he had never shed.

 _They_ had made him who he was. They had made who he was against his will. He had been transformed into a robot, a machine, a weapon, a monster. He had been brainwashed. He had been tortured. His mind had been tampered with. His life had been artificially prolonged. He had been given missions and been asked to do awful things just so Hydra could prevail. He was alone. He had no one. He had been spared from a life that he would probably have enjoyed. He could not know. He would never know. There were a million things he would _never_ know or remember and it was all Hydra's fault.

He was a choiceless, nameless, ruthless, brainless, soulless person and it was their entire fault.

They had taken away every single memory of his – sweet, sour, happy, sad, angry, lovely, funny, hurtful. And in doing so, they had taken _everything_ away from him. He was left alone, completely destroyed and broken and the whispers and breezes of his memories were nothing but gloomy stars in the middle of a cold winter night. He was trapped inside a labyrinth forever, a maze whose hedges he could neither see nor touch. His memories were shards of reality, pieces of fantasy, batches of questions. There were no patterns, no fingerprints, no certainties. Shadows in the dusk, shades in the darkness.

These days, he was anchored tightly to a fragile rock in the middle of the vast ocean and sturdy waves were hitting him over and over again as a thundering storm approached in the horizon. He was fishing for his own memories and they were dangling around the baits, swimming below his feet, hiding from his sight and disappearing under the seaweeds. They escaped every single time and suddenly they were nowhere to be seen. The anchor was tightening around his figure and the waves kept clashing on his body until he was drowning and his lungs were filling with water. Darkness was lurking in the shadows and coldness was enveloping his heart.

But it made no fucking sense. It defied every single concept he knew. It defied all logic and rationality. Still, the problem was that he no longer trusted his own mind. It was as broken was he was, broken beyond repair and gone forever. _Gone_. He had no memories whatsoever, his reminiscences were tattered and scattered illogical bits and pieces that he was trying to patch together with trembling, hesitant hands. His mind was like a blank canvas and the memories were small specs of ink sprinkled across its surface in a scarlet red ink.

Just like blood. And he had far too much blood on his hands even if he had no memories at all.

These days, that name was still reverberating inside his brain till it actually felt like they had branded it there with hot, scorching iron, till it felt like poison flowing through his veins. He heard the whispers of that name every night, all night long and in every single nightmare of his. _James Buchanan Barnes_. Maybe he had actually been someone rather than a simple soldier, an asset, an object of sorts. Maybe he had had a life. Maybe he had had a name. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

So many fucking questions, so many fucking maybes.

Those revelations were threatening to open some doors that the Winter Soldier would rather keep shut – doors that he had never thought of before, doors that had never troubled him before. They were shaking on their hinges and creaking, screeching so goddamn hard that it was as if someone was dragging their sharp claws on a chalkboard until the surface was so dented that you could actually see the wall peeking behind. The disturbing sound was throbbing inside his ears and mixing with the screeches and vicious screams of his demons, of the ghosts of his past. It hurt so fucking bad that he wondered how much longer he could stand all of that.

These days, he was finally free, but it felt like he was trapped in the confines of his own poor mind. He was tied to an invisible veil and chains made of thin air had him caged inside a dome. Both of his hands were free, yet he was unable to stretch his fingers and grab ahold of the leashes of his own goddamn life. Both of his legs were free, yet he was unable to move them and leave a lifetime of torture behind. The illusion of freedom is far too evil and disturbing – you see it, you taste it and that is about it. You are still trapped and caged and left to watch yourself drown in misery, despair and torment.

The Winter Soldier was free, but he had never felt more hopeless.

The memories were tapping at his door incessantly, recklessly. Nonetheless, as he peeked through that peephole, all he saw was darkness – a deep, heavy, profound darkness that seemed to have lacerated every single being and drenched onto their withered remains. All he ever had to keep him company was his own shadow, but darkness had deprived him even of that. Every ghost of his past was hovering by that eerie-looking door and filling him with such terror and anguish that all he could listen to were the thumping sound of his heart – that hellish organ that he had kept inside its own private chamber for quite so long – and those whispers, whispers from his past, whispers from hell and beyond, whispers of his monstrosities.

He wanted to beg, he wanted to get to his knees and implore to those demons that they left him alone and that he no longer stood deep into darkness feeling his soul burn and his body wither away. A moment of peace to an unworthy man.

But the ebony darkness never responded – if anything, it grew even more to a point it no longer held any mystery, but only pain, misery and desolation. The whispers of his past were like scattered patches that made no sense at all, dandelion pieces that tickled his skin and grabbed his trembling hands with their iron grips. He was left alone and hopeless to watch his own tragedy unfold, a hoarse scream stuck on his throat, a big lump growing inside his chest. A lonely man trapped inside his own sick, twisted and unknown dark little grave.

Solitude and freedom left a bad taste in his mouth.

Dying and living, drowning and breathing, crying and screaming. It felt like that. It felt like all of that.

It was the first time in his life he could actually see, yet the light was blinding. He could finally breathe, yet his lungs were tight. He could finally speak for himself, but the words were not there. He could finally think for himself, but there were no clear thoughts to muster. He could finally _live_ , yet he felt like dying.

Loneliness was still there. Brokenness was still there. Emptiness was still there.

And never had he considered himself lonely, broken or empty. But he had always been all of that. No one. _Nothing_.

But who the hell was he?

He was nameless. He was faceless. He was heartless. He was soulless.

His routine was always the same: he woke up, washed his face and spent five minutes recollecting everything he knew about himself before writing it down. His name was Bucky, but he was known as the Winter Soldier. He was 97, but looked 27. He was born in New York City, but was kept in Siberia. He joined the Army, but was captured by Hydra. He had been best friends with Captain America, who he had fought over a month ago before Hydra's downfall. He had killed countless of faceless and nameless people, all of whom he was now remembering painfully every time he closed his eyes. He was a murderer, a monster, a puppet, a brainwashed super soldier who had worked for seventy years for a foul, evil organization whose ultimate goal was to control the entire world.

And that was it.

He was _nothing_.

Half of what he knew about himself was thanks to a museum exhibition. The other half was thanks to the constant news about the Winter Soldier.

Hydra had destroyed his mind and wiped any trace of humanity he had once had. Whatever was left of him was just a shell of a human being, someone broken beyond repair who was simply too coward to put an end to his own life. Life had never been kind to him and even now that he needed it to be over, it refused to go away.

There was still something burning inside his heart – a small flame, but a flame nonetheless. And this minuscule wisp was the very one keeping him alive, instilling some will, some choice to a man who had never had any of that.

Hydra had taken everything away from him. Killing himself would just give them something more.

So he just kept _existing_.

So he just kept being _nothing_.

It was just another spring afternoon.

It was just another coffee shop.

It was just another city.

And as he left the coffee shop for his next _mission_ , a single word was written in the coffee shop window.

 _Nothing_.

 **A/N:** hello there! So here's my new attempt at finishing my Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes story properly. Hope you guys enjoy it (:


	2. Choice

_"The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly." ― F. Scott Fitzgerald_

X

It was just another spring afternoon.

It was just another coffee shop.

It was just another city.

But he was not just another person.

He had left Perchtoldsdorf seven days ago and travelled across small and ordinary cities. He had not gone very far as forty days of travelling daily had finally gotten to him and he felt very tired all of a sudden. He was positive that such feeling was unprecedented, but then again every single day of his had something like that these days.

Not even that picturesque scenario had been enough to _entertain_ him. If anything, it had made him even more depressed and lonely. There is no bright side to seeing beauty and having no one to talk to. There is no silver lining to star gazing and meeting silence. There is no happiness in loneliness, brokenness, emptiness, nothingness.

The only voices he kept listening to were his demons'. Those cruel, vicious, screechy and venomous voices that hammered inside his brain so relentlessly that he no longer remembered the sound of his own voice. They were there whenever he woke up or drifted to sleep. They were there whenever he was driving. They were there to welcome him to the houses he broke into. They were there as he showered and tried hopelessly to find some peace as the hot water hit the nape of his neck. They were _always_ there. In a way, he was never alone.

The only company he had these days was his own and that was driving him to insanity.

There was a permanent sense of displacement lingering around his body. For over forty days, he had travelled and travelled and travelled as though he wanted to escape something. And in all reality, he did: _life_.

Yet, life was not going anywhere. Not unless he decided to put an end to it.

But as he stared at his cup of coffee and reminisced about last night, he knew he was not going to do any of that. Hydra had destroyed his life. But it had not destroyed his will or his choice. Choices. Memories. A life to call his own.

It was just another spring afternoon.

It was just another coffee shop.

It was just another city.

It was about time he did something about that.

X

Trembling hands, tight lungs, churning stomach, throbbing headache.

It was time to stop and find somewhere to sleep that night.

The Winter Soldier had come across a town named Nagykanizsa in Hungary, and upon closer examination had found an empty small two-story house around the outskirts of the city. As usual, he had broken into the place as quietly as he could and then went immediately to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. He felt very thirsty and his mouth was so dry that the intense chewing habit of his had left his lips bloodied and dented.

Chewing in his lip had become a habit because pain was a way of reminding himself that he was still there. He supposed that looking into the mirror would be less painful, but then again his sight was one he could not stand at all.

After enjoying two glasses of water and holding himself against the kitchen balcony to control the sickness due to his empty stomach, the Winter Soldier began studying his surroundings more carefully. As he cleaned the glass to avoid leaving any sort of evidence of his presence and then dried his chin, where some drops of water had slid down, his tired blue eyes fell on the fridge. With something that seemed contempt, he noticed that there were some photos and drawings hanging there. He stepped closer, fists closed to his side, and stared at them blankly, his mind racing as he contemplated the smiling faces of what seemed a rather happy family and the colorful yet incomprehensible doodles that he supposed belonged to the little blonde girl featured in every single picture.

He had a rather supercilious and uninterested, almost detached expression in his bearded face; however, there were other feelings boiling under the surface. Envy. Regret. Emptiness.

His demons whiffed their poisonous scents over his shoulders, their talons holding him in place, and he could almost listen to their cynical, derisive laughter. His eyes were burning in humiliation, shame and self-loathing.

It was always like that. _Always_. Every single house he had broken into could not be more different than his reality. _His entire world_ revolved around pain and misery, darkness and brokenness whereas _the rest of the world_ spun around the opposite.

Paradox, was it not what they called it? Yes, that must be it. Or maybe it was plain irony. Life had a way of making everything about him plain and simple ironic, paradoxical, _absurd_. That was just who he was.

Swallowing a big lump in his throat, the Soldier stared at the drawings and photographs for a second longer before exhaling deeply, opening the fridge and grabbing something to eat, blinking back angry, ashamed and scorching hot tears. Yet, once he closed the door, he kept staring at the pictures as he ate the rest of a sugarless piece of cake someone had left there, probably five days ago judging by the dry texture of the dessert.

Happy faces. Sparkling eyes. Not a single ounce of worry troubled any of those people.

 _Normal lives_.

None of them had been tortured for years. None of them had been brainwashed. None of them had committed unforgivable crimes. None of them had killed. None of them had had their minds tampered with. None of them had been deprived of their will, their choices or their memories. None of them had had their lives broken beyond repair.

He longed for those smiles. He envied the sparkle in their eyes. He coveted their normal lives.

Those feelings where always there whenever he broken into those people's houses. But this time it seemed to be worse. That underlying feeling of displacement seemed to have lodged deep into his heart to a point that all he could think about was darkness, emptiness and loneliness. All he kept thinking about was that all he could do was stare blankly at how his entire world had fallen apart.

That poor, tortured man kept gaping at the fridge door with a mix of anger, envy and pain. He wanted to tear those things down, perhaps destroy that kitchen and yell that they were pathetic and ignorant little people whose pointless lives were based on lies, that while they had time to pose for photographs, cruel crimes were committed and people's lives were destroyed. That while they smiled and cheered, people cried and wept, begged for their lives to end just so they could not suffer such a torturous amount of pain.

There was so much pain. It felt so, so cold. Loneliness was dark, cold, and agonizing.

Rather than that, however, the Winter Soldier raised his _other_ hand and touched the photograph right in the middle, which featured a ninety-year-old man smiling so brightly and so genuinely that that seemed to be the happiest moment of his life. The image had been captured in a park and there was a diverse assortment of flowers behind him, which resembled a colorful, soft ocean. The blonde girl was sitting in the background and riding a wooden horse, completely oblivious to that setting, her figure so tiny that it was like she was not even there.

He felt something burning inside his chest as he watched that old man's blissful expression.

That could be his very present had Hydra not broken his life.

He could be surrounded by family and friends.

He could be travelling and enjoying life.

He could be smiling and laughing.

He could be normal.

He could be _alive_.

Yet, he was none of that. He would never have any of that. He would never be any of that.

He did not even know whether those had once been his dreams.

But those could not be his dreams. Because he was the Winter Soldier.

Darkness and brokenness were somehow addictive. They were familiar. They were comfortable. They were easy to deal with. They were already part of his life – of his heart and soul. They were entrenched into his core, branded into his mind, imprinted in every corner of his body, flowing through his bloodstream. Their deep roots were carved so deeply that they were as natural as breathing.

Yet, his body ached with self-hatred. His mind spun with hopeless thoughts. His touch poisoned and destroyed everything. His lungs burned hard as he gasped for air. His body constantly shuddered, his hands relentlessly trembled and his neck was always drenched in cold sweat.

Darkness and brokenness followed him like a shadow. An all too familiar shadow.

Such a dark side, one that not even the stars would shine on.

Darkness and brokenness made him who he was. Maybe at some point monsters stop living under our beds and decide to inhabit our cores.

 _Who the hell is Bucky?_

 _Am I Bucky?_

 _Am I the Winter Soldier?_

 _Who am I?_

Controlling the urge to scream or smash something to smithereens, controlling once the again that blistering pain in his eyes, he grabbed the picture with trembling and hesitant hands. He turned it back and read " _Vienna, April 11th 2014_ ".

The day everything started falling apart.

He let out a hoarse snort. It was a dry laughter and his voice sounded so rusty that he wondered if he was still capable of recognizing it. Yet, it was unavoidable. It was _yet again_ so ironic that that picture that exuded happiness and peacefulness had been taken in the very day his life had changed forever. He kept laughing manically, uncontrollably, as he placed the picture back to its place and then dragged his fingers violently in his skull, hoping to control that throbbing sensation that came and went every time he thought of those horrifying and life-changing events.

He stumbled upon his feet as he left the kitchen, leaning against the walls of the corridor in a desperate attempt to keep himself together, his balance wavering every time he painfully inhaled and exhaled. He could feel the walls closing around his weak figure and that burning feeling inside his lungs as he gasped for air. His vision was blurry and specked, his throat was dry and sore, and his stomach had dropped so low that he wondered where the fuck it was. He blinked twice, thrice and tried to regain some level of consciousness of his surroundings, some level of control of his trembling body. But it was all in vain.

It was such a pathetic situation, he considered for the briefest of seconds, to be defeated by something so simple as life itself. Still, there he was, gasping for air, anchoring himself against whatever piece of furniture he could find, dragging his figure around hopelessly, helplessly and pathetically, propping his quivering hands over a box atop a small wooden desk and squeezing his eyes shut so excruciatingly that his orbits were about to burst.

Panic was such a fucking terrifying enemy, the first one he could not finish with his fucking bare hands. Instead, all he could feel was horror shiver down his spine and hiss deep into his bone to the point where it was like he was made of fear himself. Fear of the unknown. Fear of himself. Fear of living by himself. Fear of being alive.

However, life was not finished with him. It was only beginning.

When he somehow managed to reluctantly open his eyes, the first thing he found were another set of pictures. And then postcards. And then a bunch of old-looking, yellow-paged diaries.

And then hell itself.

His body fell slowly to the floor while he held onto those worn out pages and scattered polaroids, his hands trembling so goddamn hard. Every single word he read felt like a punch straight to his gut. Every beautiful and smiley face felt like a sharp blade running up and down his spine. Every page he touched were like a thunderstorm of papercuts. A whirlwind of every shard of his broken life.

Family. Friends. Loved ones. Wishes. Dreams. Hopes. Memories. Choices. _Memories_. _Choices_.

He had not realized until now, but that entire house reeked of memories and lifetime choices, and that was what troubled him the most. Because that was precisely what they had taken away from him. That was precisely what Hydra had deprived him of. That was precisely how they had broken his life. By taking away his choice. Erasing his memories. Tearing him apart. Breaking him down. He had _nothing_. He was _nothing_. And now he was being exposed to everything he could have been, everything he could have had, everything he could have lived and chosen and dreamed of.

The Winter Soldier was left empty-handed, empty-hearted, empty-minded.

Emptiness. Nothingness. Those were his everything.

A startless night. A waterless river. A waveless ocean. _Nothing_. _No one_. _Nothing_.

And there it was once again: Vienna. Mentioned in every single postcard, highlighted in every single page of those old diaries, featured in every single one of those pictures, described in every single lovely and tender moment of that old man's life. It was there when he had met his sweetheart, it was there when they had bid their goodbyes, it was there when they had rekindled, it was there when they had built their family, it was there when he had bid her farewell, it was there in every single entry that exuded peace, love, happiness, memories, choices. _Life_. Those gardens, those smiles, those blue skies, those breezy afternoons, those soulful morning rains, those starry nights.

And those two ordinary people – Julia and Martin, or whatever the fuck their names were – it was like their lives were supposed to mirror his, had he had one, of course. Their humbleness, their happiness, their soulfulness, their memories, their choices, their plain and simple and boring and fucking ordinary lives! He could not take his eyes off them, he could not stop reading about them, he could not contain his interest, his envy, his hatred, his despise, his absolute disgust at everything those fucking pictures and postcards and journals depicted! But most of all, he could not contain how painfully he wished he could call their lives _his_.

The Winter Soldier wished from the bottom of his shallow-beating heart that he was not just an asset, a soldier, a weapon, a monster. He wished he were James Buchanan Barnes. He wished his life were as boring as those people's were. He wished he were able to look into the mirror and see sheer happiness brighten up his eyes. He wished those postcards were his, those journals were his, those pictures and that house and everything their happy lives entailed were his.

Instead, he was just a shell of a human being, a ghost, an empty and evil monster who was bound to spend the rest of his life regretting everything he had done and could not even fucking remember any of it. Because what hurts the most are the most absurd emotions, like longing for the impossible, being nostalgic for things that never existed, wishing what could have been, regretting over being who you are, missing what never was. There is no such thing as wholeness when you spend the rest of your life gazing at the sunset and contemplating wilted hopes scattered across a rotten, lifeless landscape.

A dried river, a wrecked shore.

He muffled a scream through gritted teeth as he held his head between unsteady, cold hands.

That fucking super hero. Those fucking parasites. Explosion. Debris. Pain. Death.

" _Bucky, you've known me your entire life._ _Your name is James Buchanan Barnes_."

" _Bucky?_ "

The walls were closing around him. His lungs were constricted. His chest felt heavy and tight.

" _I'm not gonna fight you. You're my friend"._

 _"Bucky?"_

The lights were sparkling around him. Darkness was lurking in the shadows.

 _"Then finish it. 'Cause I'm with you 'til the end of the line…"_

 _"Bucky?"_

His hands were trembling. His breathing was erratic. His vision was tunneling.

 _"You know me."_

 _"Bucky?"_

His demons were clinging to his shoulder. He could smell their putrid breathings. He could feel their cold touches. He could sense their deathly presences. He could hear their vicious voices.

Darkness was creeping in, crawling under his skin and touching his heart.

 _It was snowing, he was falling, he was screaming._

 _And it was cold, it was too fucking cold._

He did not know what pain was worse – the torment for what he had done or the ache for what he never would.

His chest felt so empty, so devoid of any emotion whatsoever that he wondered if he was still there. Perhaps a light breeze would take him to another world, perhaps all it would take was someone to take pity on him and push him through the veil. Perhaps falling through nothingness was not so bad after all.

 _It was snowing, he was falling, he was screaming._

 _And it was cold, it was too fucking cold…_

 _It was snowing, he was falling, he was screaming…_

 _He landed with a thump on the ground. It was so fucking cold…_

 _He eyed his left arm and passed out. There was so much blood, it was so fucking cold…_

 _The scene changed and he saw himself now lying on a bed and there were doctors beside, watching him warily, eerily, longingly. A fat scientist approached his bedside and he could see the eagerness beneath his small, glistening eyes as if he was watching a precious gem. The man called him Sergeant Barnes… He had a thick accent. Was it German? Russian? He didn't care. He eyed his left arm and it had been replaced by a metallic prosthetic arm, which was almost robotic, bionic looking. He closed his fists and could feel anger and despair take over his body. He saw himself start trashing and then grab the closest doctor's throat. He could feel his fingers smash the man's bones and life leave his bloodshot eyes. He felt so much hate, so much anger, so much despair, such a painful desire to tear everything apart and destroy everyone with his bare hands!_

 _And it was so, so cold..._

 _The scene changed again before he could even decipher who the hell those people were. He was now in the middle of a gloomy-looking street and staring at a tall, blonde man who had a shield in his hands. Steve Rogers. The Winter Soldier saw the way the man's blue eyes widened and the recognition that flashed beneath them as well as a touch of eagerness and surprise. Steve Rogers, Captain America lowered his arms at once as he gazed at his old friend's face and his chest was going up and down fast; he was breathing heavily in anxiety._

 _"Bucky?"_

 _"Who the hell is Bucky?" He heard himself reply and clench his jaw, though his eyes widened faintly._

 _The scene changed again and he was now at one of Hydra's safe houses. There was a mechanic working on his other arm and none of the soldiers were facing him. His face was full of doubt and concern and he could see that there was something else there too, but he had no time to figure out what because Alexander Pierce approached him._

 _"Mission report."_

 _The Winter Soldier saw himself keep his mouth shut._

 _"Mission report."_

 _His refusal to answer got his other-self a slap on the face. He could feel another bout of anger boiling on his insides. Both of his arms and hands itched to grab ahold of Pierce's throat and break it until his bones turned into dust. He wanted to smash that man, pummel him to the ground. Yet, he was glued to the spot. A monkey in leashes._

 _"The man on the bridge… Who was he?"_

 _It was evident that Pierce had anticipated that question and it was evident that he would lie. The Winter Soldier saw his hesitation and dislike, and his arms itched to kill that fucking man. He wanted to see if he could make that arrogant prick bleed. He wanted to see if he would beg for forgiveness and plead for his life. He wanted to wipe that fucking smirk off his pathetic face. He wanted to make him suffer for everything he had put him through, but most of all for having tricked him, brainwashed and tortured him for all those years. He was just another one of his masters, he knew, but he loathed that smirking, arrogant bastard for all he stood for._

 _"You met him earlier this week on another assignment." He told him with no emotion._

 _"I knew him." The Winter Soldier all but spat._

 _"Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped this century, and I need you to do it one more time. Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we're gonna give it a push. But if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and Hydra can't give the world the freedom it deserves." He answered vaguely, ignoring completely the Soldier's question._

 _An enormous feeling of despair and hopelessness hit him. And then realization dawned upon him as he noticed the way Pierce was avoiding that question._

 _That fucking liar. Those fucking liars._

 _THOSE FUCKING LIARS! IT WAS THEIR ENTIRE FUCKING FAULT!_

 _They had deprived him of the truth. In doing so, they had crushed his will, broken his choice. They had destroyed his life, broken it beyond any form of repair. And they kept doing that over and over again until there was not an ounce of will and consciousness left to his fragile mind. His memories, his choices, his most treasured possessions had been torn apart by those fucking people! And they insisted on doing that over and over and over again until he was nothing, no one, until he was as empty as their fucking promises, until he was a mere ghost._

" _But I knew him." He insisted, and it was obvious that even his old-self had realized the same._

 _He wanted to punch himself, grab both of his shoulders and shake them, slap his face, grab his hair, shout at himself, kick him until he did something other than stare hopelessly at that fucking leech. Why had he been so weak? Why hadn't he torn the whole place down, killed every single one of them and escaped? They had lied to his face, they had cheated him and they had erased his memories after he had come across the only piece of information that connected him to his past. A small, minuscule spec of hope that they had destroyed mercilessly, ruthlessly before he even had time to understand the magnitude of it._

 _And how many more times had they done the same?_

 _And just how many times had they broken him, wiped his memories, tortured him?_

 _And just how many times had they torn him apart?_

 _And just how many times had they removed any trace of what made him human?_

 _Not even his life was his. Not even his memories were his. Not even his choice was his._

 _He had never felt so fucking powerless, hopeless, helpless and forlorn as in that very moment._

 _His mere existence meant absolutely fucking nothing._ He was just there _._

 _But his time was up._

 _As he observed Alexander Pierce command a scientist to wipe his memories and start him over, the scene changed one last time._

 _Yet, this time it was not a memory. It was not a nightmare._ It was a dream _._

 _The first dream he had had in a very long time._

 _The blue-eyed man saw himself in the middle of a bright sunny day. He looked up and it was so bright that his eyes stung and he had to close them immediately. As he tried to ignore the small stars sparkling in front of his eyes, he noticed that he was standing in the middle of a beautiful park and sitting on a wooden bench, his hands clasped above his knees. He looked around and frowned, feeling momentarily confused at the odd familiarity of that unknown scenery. He had never been to such a normal place, his eyes had never seen such a pretty scenario, his nose had never smelled something so pure and enticing. There were_ lilies _scattered in a crystalline lake at a distance and an abundance of flowers behind him. A light breeze lulled small falling leaves and_ dandelion _pieces, and the air smelled of something that reminded him of_ green apples and strawberries _._

 _He realized with a gasp that he was inside that elder man's photograph._

 _Vienna._

 _As he tried to get to his feet, however, his time was up._

When he opened his eyes, he was back to the dark living room and staring at the opposite wall. He had fallen asleep on the floor, the box of postcards, journals and pictures by his side. A feeling he had never experienced was lingering around his body as he blinked as many times as he could just so he could not forget anything.

Peacefulness.

He did not even remember dreaming. Much less of something so _odd_.

His nightmares were not getting any better and if anything, they were feeling more like memories with every passing day. And they were always the same: it was snowing, he was falling, he was screaming. Whenever he landed, it was cold, it was too fucking cold. It always smelled of death, blood, tears and pain. He was always suffocating, asphyxiating as if everything he did took every fiber of his body, every grain of strength that was left to him.

When he woke up thrashing and screaming, he always clung weakly to his journals as he tried to patch together his recollections with trembling hands and a tossing stomach. Names. Features. Places. Situations. His memories were pieces of an illogical puzzle built in a scarlet red ink. Dandelion pieces blowing in the wind.

This night had begun just the same. The ending, however… Perhaps there were happy endings after all.

He was scribbling fervently in the next second, his handwriting a complete blur of incoherent words and colors. His mind was racing so goddamn hard that it felt like someone has flashing the scene forward and he was pinned to the floor. The Winter Soldier wrote down everything – from that fat man's words to Pierce's dismissive and casual tone as he ordered Hydra's soldiers to fry his brains and torture his mind once more. Still, even though those memories felt so key, all he could think about was how he wished he were back to that dream just so he could feel how happiness and peacefulness felt like.

Bright sun. Green leaves. Lilies and dandelions. Green apples and strawberry scent.

He kept writing his memories as detailed as he could and hoping with every fiber that he was able to remember that dream as vividly as if he had been to that very park.

Was that how normalcy felt like? Was that how life felt like? So sweet, so calm, so _real_!

But that could not be true, that _had to_ be a figment of his imagination, maybe something his mind had devised in the hopes of giving comfort to someone who had been tortured and broken countless and countless times. People like him – monsters – they were not entitled of happiness, goodness, kindness. They were entitled of suffering, of going through the same pain they had inflicted, the same destruction and mayhem that their bloodied hands had caused. Even unwillingly, he had killed, murdered, destroyed. As brainwashed and as choiceless as he was, _he_ had taken numerous lives and brought so much pain and misery that it seemed only fitting that he was fated to a lifetime of that for the rest of his life.

Nonetheless, as unworthy as he was, that dream was reverberating inside his brain and instilling such an unprecedented feeling to his _heart and soul_ that he simply did not know what the fuck to do. He kept pacing and pacing in that cluttered living room, his hands wrapped around his dark brown hair in utter despair as he tried to forget how happiness had felt like while also _praying_ mentally that he could go back to that enchanting place once again. He squeezed his eyes shut, his lips trembling and hand sweating cold as he mustered all his self-control and stamina to forget that fucking dream, to let go of that fucking haunting sensation that had made him feel more alive than ever.

How could something so beautiful feel so eerie, so unnerving, so absolutely gut-wrenching?

That mixture of hope _and_ hopelessness was tearing him apart from the inside. It was like a glimmer of peace had descended upon him as the world collapsed under his feet. He kept pacing frantically, waiting for _someone_ or _something_ to take pity on him and provide an answer to what felt like the most confusing and painful conundrum he had ever faced.

It was all in vain.

Because in all reality, that dream made him feel _human_.

Because in all reality, that dream had felt more than just a dream.

And all of a sudden, he realized he did have an answer. It was right there in those pictures, postcards and journals. He could just reach out and grab it. Choices. Memories. A life to call his own.

Paradox, was not it the word? It was like everything had been devised to prove just that. From the moment they had made him into the Winter Soldier to the moment where he had glanced upon his past and then had those precious truths taken away from him so violently. And in all subtlety, he had been transported to a place that encompassed everything he longed the most.

He finally had a choice. He was finally starting to create his own memories. He was alive.

So maybe he could choose to be happy, to have some dreams, to find some peace of mind.

As he left that house early in the morning, a single word was written in the dust-covered window of the kitchen.

 _Choice._

X

It was just another spring afternoon.

It was just another coffee shop.

But it was not just another city.

It was Vienna.

X

 **A/N:** hi there (: I hope you enjoy this update since it is meant to set the tone of this story. I am sorry it took me so much time to post this chapter, but I am working on each chapter as ideas pop to my mind.

Bucky/The Winter Soldier is probably my favorite character of the MCU. Well, I haven't read any of the comics to be quite honest, so this portrayal should take place after the events I CA: TWS and before CA: CW. And, of course, the lovely, adorable and striking Sebastian Stan is my main inspiration. Why Vienna? Well, I honestly don't know! It's not that large, not that small, and it has the perfect setup to what I intend to do here.

Yes, this is a love story, but expect a darker tone because Bucky still has a very rough path in terms of accepting who he is, figuring it out who he is and reconciling with his past. More about the kind of help that he will be getting in our next chapter, which I really want to post as soon as possible.

Thank you very much to everyone who followed or favorited this piece. I would love to read your comments and see your thoughts on this piece. I hope you enjoy it!


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